IP: Despite Some Concerns, Civil Liberties Are Taking a Back Seat

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

By ROBIN TONER
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 — The recent expansion of executive power in the legal 
fight against terrorism reflects a powerful conviction in the Bush 
administration that it is fighting acts of war, not mere crimes, on 
American soil.
This is the principle behind the administration's proposals to establish 
military tribunals to try foreigners accused of terrorism; to track down 
and question thousands of immigrants who have entered the United States in 
recent years, mostly from Middle Eastern countries; and to monitor 
conversations between some people in federal custody and their lawyers.
The administration is convinced that the public is on its side and shares 
the view that, as one White House official put it, "it's a new reality." 
The old rules, the old legal and law enforcement cultures, have to change, 
officials argue, to prevent future attacks and to prosecute terrorists in 
ways befitting their acts.
"The mass murder of Americans by terrorists, or the planning thereof, is 
not just another item on the criminal docket," Vice President Dick Cheney 
told a cheering audience of conservative lawyers Thursday. "This is a war 
against terrorism. Where military justice is called for, military justice 
will be dispensed."
Civil liberties advocates argue that the administration's proposals are far 
too sweeping. And even some members of Congress who are deeply sympathetic 
to the administration's ends are beginning to rebel at its means. "I don't 
know when, in the last 20 years, I've heard so many members of both parties 
come up and say, what the heck is going on?" said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, 
the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But administration officials are determined not to

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http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/18/politics/18LIBE.html


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